Wedding Tips and Advice

Let’s face it; the bride has the absolute toughest job of the wedding. Being a wedding planner and even being involved in the wedding is stressful enough but when you’re the bride, you have a whole new set of challenges and everything has to be perfect. When you’re a bride, you know the wedding isn’t going to go perfect but you’re just spending the entire time running around thinking “what is going to go wrong”? This is a fair assessment as something usually always goes wrong. Let’s not focus on the most stressful parts for the bride though, let’s focus on some must have essentials for the bride.

First are her shoes. She’s going to need some comfortable shoes to step her feet in as she’ll be on her feet all day. She needs to show off her feet, she needs to have a luxurious and classy look but she needs to be comfortable as well. After all, she’ll spend literally the entire day in them on her feet, carrying 30 pounds of a dress. Have you ever tried walking around in heels for a few hours? It’s not easy and you have to learn how to balance in them, not to mention that they dig into your feet. If you’ve ever been to a lot of weddings, you’ll notice that a lot of brides switch to tennis shoes or even flip flops during the reception.

The gown also needs to be breathable and at a maintainable length. When you put the gown on, it needs to be relatively tight but not so tight that it starts to cut off circulation. A wedding dress that moves with the bride and not against the bride is essential. No matter how good it looks, don’t buy something that’s unbearable to wear.

Let’s face it, the bride is probably going to shed a tear and she’d be crazy not to. It’s a special day and it’s beautiful what’s happening on stage. The problem is, she spends so much time on that make up and so many hours perfecting her look. This is why she needs to make sure she’s wearing some mascara that’s waterproof. You don’t want to look beautiful one minute and turn into a scary looking clown the next.

Lipstick that lasts is another issue. You want to make sure you have lipstick that’s not going to run off when you do the big kiss and something you can eat with. You need lipstick that will last for hours and can withstand all the cheek kisses you’ll be giving your family members.

Some strong antiperspirant is also very much needed. With your pits exposed all day, you don’t want people going behind your back talking about how funky the bride smells. You want to smell just as beautiful as you look and the more stressed you get, the more you’re going to sweat. Get some double antiperspirant just to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you and you stay fresh all day.

The last thing you’ll need as a necessity is definitely going to be a small hairbrush or comb. You’re going to have little frizzled hair and you’re going to want to straighten out before you go in front of the crowd.

Some couples already know a clergy member or an officiant that they have marrying them and tying the knot for good. However, a lot of people never think about this or plan for this in advance, leaving them scurrying for one weeks before the wedding. So, what does this mean for you? This means that you’re going to be in the awkward position of interviewing for potential officiants that you don’t know. This can seem like a daunting task and hard to choose the right person, but here’s some hiring tips and questions you should ask.

Ask the officiant if they’re actually qualified to perform this kind of ceremony and they can perform a marriage at the location specified.

Next, ask them about your personalized ceremony and ask them about the process they’re going to use to create it.

Ask if they have any fee (some do not), ask if there’s any inclusions with the fee and what things aren’t included. Ask about what’s exactly in the contract and what isn’t. Get all of this information up front and make sure it’s clearly laid out.

How much freedom will you guys have when you’re planning out the ceremony? Ask if they can get what they want or if they’ll have to pay extra for that kind of stuff.

Ask how they initially got into this work or what initially peaked their interest into doing such a thankless job. Ask them why they’d want to do something that so many people overlook. Ask them how long they’ve been doing this job as well and possibly how many weddings they’ve done overall.

Then, ask them how many weddings they do in a year and if they’re a full time officiant, how many they do in a day. Some officiants do this full time and charge a nice fee to go along with it.

Ask to see some kind of proof for their work. Don’t ask for a sample, that’s what cheap people ask for. Ask if they have any kind of video or portfolio documenting their work so you can take a look at their ceremonies.

Ask them if it’s okay to contact some of their previous clients. This is like an employer asking if it’s okay that they contact some of your past employers to see what they say about you and if you’re a good fit for the company.

What happens if the officiant is sick? Ask about their back up plans and how they handle plans if they’re sick or unable to attend the wedding. You don’t want someone who is sick to attend the wedding and ruin it for the guests.

The thing your officiant being interviewed will ask about is where the ceremony is taking place and will more than likely go over detailed plans about what will be done. You’ll go over some traditions such as things you like and things you dislike but it’s better to flesh that all out in an interview.

So, you want to become a wedding officiant? Why do you want to do that? Let’s start with that question. Why exactly do you want to become a wedding officiant? Do you know how thankless of a job it is? If this is something that you’re doing for the money, then you might want to look at another profession because this is definitely not going to make you rich and most officiants don’t even make a sustainable living off of this. Look up officiant salaries if you’re doing this for the money and you will quickly reconsider.

So why else could you possibly be doing this? Is it your love for the people or your love for weddings? What is it about people getting married that you see so much joy in him? Do you genuinely just like to see people happy and people tying the knot? Try to determine things like this before you decide to become an officiant because it is such a thankless job. Most people don’t even remember to hire you or start looking for someone like you until weeks before their wedding when they realize they need one of you to actually become legally married.

Putting all of that aside though, have you ever wanted to actually officiate a wedding ceremony? Is there just something about weddings that have always caught your attention and made you want to do that? Well the good news is, even though you’ve read all of the nasty things above about being an officiant, it’s very easy to become a legal and authorized officiant. You have to be authorized to not only marry people but you have to sign the marriage license as well. You have to be recognized first though by an actual ordained minister that needs to be part of an established church.

There’s actually a place called Universal Ministries that you can do this through. You can actually just sign up and order an ordination certificate to make you certified. You have to get a certificate for each state that you plan on being legalized in and actually marrying people in. After you get some letters of recommendations, present all the letters and your license to your state and you will then shortly after be legalized to actually make people official. You can then officiate weddings and you’ll be off to a nice new career of officiation.

It’s not glamorous though. It comes with its drawbacks.

The Traveling – You’ll be doing a lot of this and most of the time, it’s non-compensated unless you specify you want compensation.

The Demands – Brides have a lot of demands and this is understandable. It’s a big day for them so you’ll end up being on the receiving end of a lot of barking orders.

The Pay (Lack Of) – This is something we’ve touched upon but this is something you need to know. You’re more than likely not going to become rich or get paid very much for doing this. A lot of people do this because they love it.

Every couple will admit that preparation for a wedding is not an easy task. It is indeed an extremely time-consuming task. You have to make tons of decisions. You need to make decisions on your wedding venue, gown, invitations and so on. To make life easier, some couples may consider hiring a wedding planner.

In fact, a wedding planner should help you to make the decisions in your wedding planning. They will know a lot of wedding services providers and help you to choose the most suitable one. It may take you some days to search on the web to find a favor party shop which offers wedding favors in modern Chinese style. Your wedding planner, however, may have already known some stores which provide what you need, and this saves you plenty of time.

Your planner should have created an extensive wedding checklist, and you can just follow this list to do your preparation work. He or she will even remind you when you should prepare for which item. If you don’t have any concept of the style of an item, he / she can give you advices and advise you the estimated cost so that you can always be on the budget.

Besides, a wedding planner should have been helping quite some couples to hold their weddings. He or she should be experienced enough to help you to avoid unnecessary events and accidents that might happen.

Although a wedding planner can assist you to save money and time, it is not that easy to find a good one since your wedding planner should help you throughout the whole planning process. In fact, not all wedding planners are equally experienced and good. A poorly chosen one can quickly ruin your perfect wedding.

The number one issue you have to consider is the experience of the planner. In fact, experience and reputation are the most important factors when you are selecting your wedding planner. If he/she isn’t experienced enough, he/she will not know all the precautions you should take and thus ruining your wedding. You should always ask for the portfolio when you approach a planner.

Furthermore, you should find a wedding planner who is easy to communicate with. No One will deny that communications are the most important for any service. He / she should understand your needs thoroughly. And you have to make sure that he/she understand everything you tell him / her. Otherwise, you will just find everything wrong on your big day.

You should also be actively involved in the planning and decision-making process. You do not just let your wedding planner make the decisions for you. Instead, you are seeking for their advice, and you are the one who make the final decisions. ObviouslyOf course, you have to trust his / her professionalism,otherwise, there is completely no point to hire a wedding planner.